Offering useful insights into a great variety of instruments and makers, Early Keyboard Instruments in European Museums focuses on the more important and unusual holdings in 47 museums in 16 European countries, such as the Cristofori pianos in Rome and Leipzig, and the most copied harpsichord in the world, a 1769 instrument by Taskin in Edinburgh.The book details the important contributions of such builders as Broadwood, Dulcken, Graf, Hass, Kirkman, Mietke, the Ruckers family, Shudi, the Silbermanns, Stein, Streicher (the first female piano maker), Walter, and Zenti. Elements of appearance, decoration, sound, and playing mechanism of individual harpsichords, clavichords, and early pianos are explored, as well as their historical significance, relationship to other extant instruments, and the changes (good and bad) wrought by restorations.Readers will delight in the descriptions of The HagueÕs 1769 clavicytherium (upright harpsichord) with its carved and gilded door, the glass-covered virginal in LondonÕs Victoria and Albert Museum, and the ebony statue of Orpheus gracing a giraffe piano in Salzburg. More than 100 photos show the many contrasting styles: simple yet graceful fortepianos; harpsichords with beautiful paintings inside their cases; overdecorated Rococo instruments; and the heavy, utilitarian squares that middle-class households could afford.The authors provide travelers with essential information on each museum and a short description of the city in which it is located (information based on their own experience conducting tours to many of these collections). The book concludes with a glossary of technical terms and an index of makers.